


what's left of me

by rookerrogue



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Cyberverse
Genre: (this is my interpretation of the cheetor/roddy/bee relationship lol), Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I JUST WANTED TO PROCESS SOME STUFF LOL, Past Character Death, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23166565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rookerrogue/pseuds/rookerrogue
Summary: NO. ONE. TOLD. HOT. ROD. WHAT. HAPPENED. TO. CHEETOR.WHY DIDNT ANYONE DO THAT.  WHY WASNT IT ADDRESSED.  AAAAAAAAAAAAi get major "older brother" vibes from roddy, esp toward cheetor and we all KNOW this boy is a self-hating CHAMP so.... idk man........ hes gonna be kind of messed up lol
Relationships: Bumblebee & Cheetor, Cheetor & Hot Rod, Hot Rod & Bumblebee, background Hot Rod/Soundwave
Comments: 18
Kudos: 101





	what's left of me

Bumblebee was having a hard time.

Not  _ only  _ were there a bunch of Decepticons around (which he was  _ fine  _ with, he was a nice guy  _ and _ they were tolerating him, but there were a  _ bunch  _ of them and they looked  _ really  _ mean. . .) but not only that, but he was also finally having time to process the fact that he was sad.

His spirits were officially low.

During a war, you don’t really get to take in the fact that your friends die. Sure, maybe sometimes you get a moment to feel down, but you have to pack it all up when the next bad thing happens. Bumblebee had hated that. 

He’d lost too many friends.

This time around, though, it felt personal-- more than before. Maybe it was because he’d clicked so well with Cheetor from the moment they’d met, or maybe it was because this particular loss had happened right after a long break of peace, where his mind had gotten a chance to break out of the wartime lines. But it was hurting, no matter what the reason. 

Bumblebee had been the only one to climb out from underneath Cybertron, when it was all finished. He’d spent the brief respite before the Quints arrived thinking that both of his closest friends were dead. And sure, maybe Hot Rod had just gotten his paint scorched up and his vocoder corroded, but Cheetor was. . . Cheetor really was gone. With the Allspark, like he’d probably always wanted to be.

He didn’t really know how to handle it. Everything had been going so fast recently--

“Bumblebee!” 

Bumblebee turned around and nearly flinched-- he still wasn’t used to Hot Rod’s blackened paint and the mech had  _ lunged  _ at him, that had  _ definitely  _ been a lunge. “Hot Rod--”

“Come on!” Hot Rod grabbed his hand and pulled him along the hallway. 

“Are we under attack?” Bumblebee yelled, stumbling after his much-taller friend. “Did the Decepticons break the treaty?”

Hot Rod shoved him into the first open doorway.

“Hot Rod!” Bumblebee whirled. “This is an empty room, _what_ is going on?"

“Bee, I need you--” Hot Rod tripped on his own feet as he scrambled to shut the door, an unexpected move from him. “Bee, I need you to tell me _everything_ that happened after I fell in the waste, and quick!”

Bumblebee held up his hands. “Wait, what?”

Hot Rod sat down at a table, scrubbing at his face. “Look, I have a meeting with Optimus and Megatron and Soundwave in like. . . ten minutes, and I don’t want to look like an idiot.”

Bumblebee sat down. “What do you mean, an idiot?”

Hot Rod sighed loudly. “Y’know, like. . . constantly asking what they mean when they say ‘the scraplet incident,’ or some slag.  _ Apparently  _ you guys won the war without me? Which is-- I mean, congratulations, but I can’t look stupid in front of Soundwave again.”

Bee gave him a look. He hoped it was appropriately judgemental.

“Don’t even start, okay, you were watching a parade when he and I got on good terms.” Hot Rod’s spoiler had lifted at even the  _ mention  _ of the mech, and his face had flushed slightly. “I didn’t come here to be shamed, Bee, I came so you could tell me what you all did for the three weeks I was trapped down there.”

Bumblebee shook his head. “Sorry, Hot Rod, it’s all kind of a blur to me. I wasn’t there for the end of the war, remember-- we were all still down below Cybertron. I do remember a lot of peace talks with Shadow Striker and Soundwave, but I wasn’t there for most of them.”

Bumblebee looked up.

Hot Rod was staring at him.

“What?” Bee asked.

“What happened to Cheetor?” Roddy asked, his voice hushed.

“I--” Bee said, and couldn’t finish.

“Oh my god, Bee,” Hot Rod said, his spoiler flaring. “Oh my god! Where’s Cheetor?”

Bumblebee looked down, his spark quivering with a renewed wave of sadness. Hot Rod didn’t notice.

“He wasn’t in the parade, he wasn’t one of the Autobots we freed-- I didn’t  _ notice,  _ I was too busy with the Quints, I was busy  _ commanding,  _ where-- what happened to him, Bumblebee?!” 

Hot Rod’s voice broke. Bumblebee pulled his gaze back up.

“Hot Rod, uh. . . he-- he died,” he said. This had to be harder for Hot Rod than it was for him, Hot Rod was hearing this all for the first time, but it didn’t  _ feel  _ like it was harder for Hot Rod than it was for him. Just saying the words brought him back, watching Cheetor’s spark separate from his body, watching the shell that used to be his friend crumple to the ground.

“How?” Hot Rod whispered.

Bumblebee struggled to meet his friend’s eyes. “He was-- he-- Shockwave corrupted the Allspark, so he sacrificed himself to fix it.” He could feel his doorwings mirroring the slow droop of Hot Rod’s spoiler. “I tried to stop him. I tried to stop him, but he. . .”

There was silence.

Bumblebee’s optics started to blur against his will.

“I should have been there,” Hot Rod said, his face slack with the shock. “I should have been able to stop it. You guys were-- I was--”

“No, Hot Rod,” Bee choked out.

“I was supposed to lead you and I left you alone and Cheetor  _ died,”  _ Hot Rod said, and Bee ran around the table to grab ahold of him as his face plummeted into his hands. His shoulders shook. “Cheetor was-- Cheetor wasn’t supposed to--”

Bumblebee pressed his face into Hot Rod’s chest. The mech’s spark beat erratically, pulsing out in pained waves. “Hot Rod, I’m sorry.”

“No,  _ I  _ should be sorry!” Hot Rod hissed, and threw his hands down on the table again. “I failed. I should have known I’d fail. I should have known I’d--”

“Stop,” Bee said miserably, and pulled Hot Rod’s chair around. “You protected us.” 

Hot Rod, with the lack of the table to prop himself up on, crumpled in on himself. Bee squeezed him as tightly as he could. Part of it, he admitted, was trying to fight back his own horrible doubts about the situation.

“I didn’t protect you enough,” Hot Rod cried, muffled, into Bee’s shoulder. “God, Bee, I’m so sorry. . .”

“Cheetor-- Cheetor made his own choice,” Bumblebee said, his fingers digging into Hot Rod’s back. “You-- you stopped Drift.”

“I could have, I could-- I should have stopped both of them,” Hot Rod gasped, and choked out another sob. “I didn’t even notice he was gone, Bee! I didn’t remember him until-- until--”

Bee felt the coolant begin to run down his own face. “Y-you can’t blame yourself, Hot Rod,” he managed, holding him tighter. This felt wrong, this felt  _ horrible.  _ Hot Rod had always been there to comfort him over the years-- with Blurr, with the loss of his voice, with the terror and trauma of the war. On Earth, he’d taken to Cheetor instantly, teaching him little tricks and even helping to calm him down after being in his first fight. Hot Rod had  _ always  _ been the grounding point of their little three-point group, and seeing him like this, it was. . .

But Bee guessed they weren’t a three-point group anymore. 

“I miss him too,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “He said that he’d be with me wherever I went on Cybertron, but it doesn’t feel like he’s here. It feels like he’s gone.”

Hot Rod was crying silently now.

“I don’t know what he meant. Maybe he’s in the Allspark watching us, but I don’t-- I don’t want him to be there,” Bumblebee said, finally, and it felt like something had broken through inside of him. “I don’t care that it was what he wanted. I don’t care that he was happy to go. I don’t care that he told me not to be sad! I  _ don’t care! I want him back!” _

“I’m so sorry,” Hot Rod whispered. “Bee, I’m so sorry.”

Bee didn’t answer. 

“I. . . I was going to take him to the Lithium flats. I was going to show him how to jump the cracks. Maybe bully him into getting a speedster alt mode.” 

Bumblebee laughed shakily in spite of himself. He felt Hot Rod’s chest shake slightly under him as he managed a chuckle in response.

“He would have hated that,” Bee told him.

“M-maybe,” Hot Rod agreed. “I think some wheels would have done him good, you know?”

“Yeah,” Bumblebee said, and shuddered out another little laugh. “We  _ really  _ wouldn’t have been able to keep up with him then.”

“He was the best of all of us,” Hot Rod said, more subdued. “I should have been able to save him, Bee. I. . . I know I couldn’t have, but. . . I lost so many people I cared about, I-- I hate that it was him. I hate that he had to die.” He sighed, a very fragile sigh, against Bumblebee’s shoulder. “He shouldn’t have had to go. If I’d been there--”

“You weren’t there because you were fighting Drift,” Bumblebee said, as steadily as he could, “and if you hadn’t fought Drift he would have killed us. He would have killed Cheetor before-- before he could have saved Cybertron. And then it really would have been for nothing.”

“What did he do?” Hot Rod asked. “Can you tell me?” He sat up, wiping his face quickly. “How did-- he  _ saved  _ Cybertron?”

Bumblebee managed a smile. He really wanted nothing more than to stay here for hours with Hot Rod, talking about Cheetor and remembering him, but. . . “Don’t you have a meeting to be at? With your boyfriend?”

Hot Rod flushed, looked away, and then chuckled. “No. This is more important. I’ll comm Soundwave and tell him to cover for me.”

“Thanks,” Bumblebee said quietly, and rested his face in his hands. “Thanks, Hot Rod.”

“I don’t know what else I could do,” Hot Rod said, looking back at him. “If I couldn’t be there for Cheetor, I. . . I need to be here for you now. I need to be.”

He turned back around, flipping a switch on his wrist.

Bumblebee huddled back on the table, putting his arms around himself. If he closed his eyes and didn’t think about it enough, he could almost imagine that he felt warmth around him, like someone was holding him in an embrace.

.

**Author's Note:**

> im on tumblr at outlier-roddy so if anyone wants to pitch more fic to me i will add the prompt to the steadily growing list lmao


End file.
